I rode my black horse, and
looked, by the immortal gods, like Mars. To me might be applied
the words which were written concerning handsome General Webb, in
Marlborough's time:--
"'To noble danger he conducts the way,
His great example all his troop obey,
Before the front the Major sternly rides,
With such an air as Mars to battle strides.
Propitious heaven must sure a hero save
Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave!'
"My officers (Captains Biggs and Mackanulty, Lieutenants Glogger,
Pappendick, Stuffle, &c., &c.) were dressed exactly in the same way,
but in yellow; and the men were similarly equipped, but in black. I
have seen many regiments since, and many ferocious-looking men, but the
Ahmednuggar Irregulars were more dreadful to the view than any set of
ruffians on which I ever set eyes. I would to heaven that the Czar of
Muscovy had passed through Cabool and Lahore, and that I with my old
Ahmednuggars stood on a fair field to meet him! Bless you, bless you, my
swart companions in victory! through the mist of twenty years I hear the
booming of your war-cry, and mark the glitter of your scimitars as ye
rage in the thickest of the battle!*
* I do not wish to brag of my style of writing, or to
pretend that my genius as a writer has not been equalled in
former times; but if, in the works of Byron, Scott, Goethe,
or Victor Hugo, the reader can find a more beautiful
sentence than the above, I will be obliged to him, that is
all--I simply say, I WILL BE OBLIGED TO HIM.
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